Flights over Brussels: The State condemned to compensate for the nuisances due to excessive use of Runway 01

The judgement of the Court of Appeal of Brussels condemning the Belgian State to compensate the residents of the eastern periphery of Brussels airport for excessive use of runway 01 reinforces the position of Brussels in the process in conflict of interest brought by the Flemish Region against the application of the “noise” decrees of the Brussels-Capital region and the injunctions brought by the regional government and 19 municipalities against the Belgian State for repeated violations of Brussels environmental legislation and the Constitution guaranteeing the right to a “healthy environment“, said Tuesday the head of the cdH group in the Brussels parliament, Benoît Cerexhe.

For Cerexhe, who is also the mayor of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, one of the communes involved in the court actions, “this judgement gives full reason to all those who for years have been fighting against the way in which the Belgian State, the federal government and Belgocontrol use the wind criteria and manipulate them to knowingly and without any consideration other than communitarian reasons, send in great numbers to Brussels and the Oostrand flights which normally would have been flying over Flemish Brabant“.

The Court of Appeal rightly points out that the districts overflown during the landing phases on Runway 01 were built well before the development of Brussels airport, Cerexhe said. The cdH group in the Brussels parliament therefore called on the federal government to enforce without delay the judgement of the Court of Appeal and to “cease immediately and without false excuse the intensive and abusive use of a Runway 01 which is, and can only be, an auxiliary runway to be put into service only when the wind conditions are so difficult that the safety of the passengers and the inhabitants of the overflown areas necessitates it imperatively.”

Source: Belga